A 263Kb PDF of this article as it appeared in the magazine—complete with images—is available by clicking HERE
Years of planning and construction went into Beijing's iconic bird's nest stadium that is now synonymous with 2008 games. With Vancouver slated to host the Winter Games in 2010, surveyors have been hard at work helping to ready the infrastructure. Check out the story on page 12.
Diversifying
For those of you looking for ways to expand your practice, both Wendy Lathrop and Gavin Schrock have something to say on the subject of diversification this month. Schrock has also extended his teaching ability to the Internet. Those of you who enjoy "visual learning" can now watch YouTube video versions of Schrock explaining RTN components. Parlaying his comedic skills (particularly in Part 7), Schrock presents informative, short and entertaining explanations of Real Time Networks. Go to amerisurv.com and select the Video tab.
Tips & Tricks
Steven E. Weible, a Missouri LS, gives step-by-step instructions on how to use State Plane Coordinates with an inexpensive handheld GPS unit. Many of you are using these units to search for evidence, but using lats and longs. While Steven's method only applies to Transverse Mercator states, if you happen to live in such a state, you might find the ability to work directly with SPC a benefit.
A Foot in the Past . . . an Eye to the Future
Across the U.S., summer is "prime time" for Boy Scouts to work on their Surveying Merit Badge. Mike Davis wrote a nice article in the Summer 2008 Hoosier Surveyor about activities in Indiana. Here in Maryland, surveyors from the Appalachian Chapter of the Maryland Society of Surveyors met up with a group of Boy Scouts in July on the sprawling 107-acre campus of FEMA's National Emergency Training Center in Emmitsburg, Maryland. The photo below shows them drawing scale maps of their surveys. Hats off to those of you across the country who volunteer your time, share your knowledge, and set your sights with an "eye to the future" for our great profession.
Marc Cheves is editor of the magazine.
A 263Kb PDF of this article as it appeared in the magazine—complete with images—is available by clicking HERE
Editorial: Maps as a Metaphor
"I know this world is ruled by infinite intelligence. Everything that surrounds us--everything that exists--proves that there are infinite laws behind it. There can be no denying this fact. It is mathematical in its precision." There are many surveyors and mappers and members of the precision community who concur with these words of Thomas Edison. Economy, too, hangs on immutable laws. One of the .... Read the Article
Measuring a Caribbean Disaster
On January 12, 2010, a magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck the city of Port-au-Prince, the capital and largest city of Haiti. Tens of thousands of buildings collapsed, and more than 200,000 people died in the disaster. Earthquakes are not unexpected in Haiti. The country sits astride several fault lines, among them the Enriquillo-Plantain Garden fault .... Read the Article
3D-Laser Scanning and Surveying Collide
LandAir Surveying started business in 1988 performing site surveys and topographic surveys for contractors in Georgia and surrounding states with two survey crews and a total staff of less than 10. By 1998 the firm expanded to surveying cell tower sites for the telecommunications industry (more than 3,000 sites in four years) using ... Read the Article
Another Triumph!
He's done it again. Javad Ashjaee has released an impressive state-of-the-art product that enables surveyors to expand their GNSS capabilities. On June 29, 2010 Javad unveiled the Triumph VS at the company's 40,000 square foot newly designed headquarters and JAVAD EMS boardmanufacturing facility in San Jose, California. Over the decades ... Read the Article
Product Review: Hemisphere GPS R220
One of the recent trends in precision GPS manufacturing is the enclosed, fully integrated receiver. This is no doubt in response to market demands by surveyors in the field for gear that offers more durability and less complexity in setting up and getting to work. This trend has certainly offered surveyors many benefits, however, it has also ushered in a few limitations. For instance, many of these ... Read the Article
Comprehensive Collection
Recording the location, dimensions and physical attributes of every piece of equipment constituting rural utilities throughout the United States might seem like a tall order. But information tools used to build a GIS have advanced so much in recent years that the endeavor is not only possible, but plausible. Great Falls, Montana-based GeoNav Group International, Inc. recently acquired the technology to pull .... Read the Article
Feedback
Doing a Proper Job: I have a better reason for the legal profession insisting on a metes and bounds descriptions for dependent resurveys than clerk mentality or ancient check lists. In his article "Rewriting Legal Descriptions" [Vol. 7, Num. 4], Gary Kent's example of "the most egregious example of description rewriting is the preparation of a metes and bound description for a property that is a lot in ... Read the Comments
Vantage Point: "Just" What?
Several months ago my husband and I were working on a rail to trail conversion in our neighborhood, digging out debris and planting trees. At one point I was separating the junk found in the digging process from the recyclable beer cans and glass bottles when someone walked up and started talking to me. With my head still down, in the midst of trying to subdue a long strand of barbed wire into a ... Read the Article
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